The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

  The figure attacked, sending some flash of color in my direction, and I didn’t even dodge. Dumb luck alone let me live. A bolt of conjured lightning sailed past my right hip, leaving a burning scar across my side. A second later, something exploded behind me. The quake shook my insides and sent me hurtling forward, out of control, landing at my attacker’s feet.

  I didn’t think about the strike. It was instinct. The figure was so close I could feel the warmth coming off its body. Light sparkled around my head and I knew that it was summoning some new spell with which to fry my brain. So, I sprung to my feet, pushed out my sword, and ran it under its ribs as hard as I could.

  Blood was in my eyes and in my mouth and I left the sword inside the body. I stumbled back, wiping my face with dripping hands, which only made it worse.

  Blind and shaking, the next thing I heard was a scream. Not the sound of an attacking soldier and not the gurgle of death coming from the lifeless figure in front of me. This cry was full of grief.

  I turned and saw a woman, her palms empty and open, her face a vision of pain. She sent a stream of light right in my direction and I took the hit straight to my heart.

  Magic burned from her fingers, striking somewhere deep inside my chest. It wasn’t a single bolt, but a prolonged and intensifying torture like a hot coal being pushed into my flesh. The pain held my eyes open so I had no choice but to look at her face as she howled with fury. For a moment, I could have sworn it was Amari, screaming through tears as her outstretched hand forced pure hatred into my body, cooking my chest from the inside.

  Then her face ripped in half.

  A torrent of arrows opened up her skin and flayed the flesh from her bones. When she fell to the floor, I joined her.

  Soldiers stormed in and, finally, more Magum came to meet them. For the first time, it looked like a real fight.

  I was bent over on all fours, crouched under the charging feet, hoping that the hole inside my chest would heal. The hot blood fell from my nose, chin and hands, pooling beneath me in the melting snow.

  I stared at the woman’s open face and there were still tears on her shredded cheek. Behind her shoulder, I saw the hiding space she must have climbed out of. Some underground bunker made from the cracks in the stone. And there, in the darkness, was another set of eyes.

  They were small but wide with fear and understanding. Too young to put into words what had happened but old enough that she would never quite forget. She looked from the body, to me, and…

  I was under our house…

  … The killer came right past me, panting and dripping with blood…

  The next thing I remember, the child was in my arms.

  I left the fighting behind and it was swallowed by the mountain as I ducked through crevices and under cliffs until I was far away from the battle. Climbing down the south side of the mountain was harder than the way I’d come, but it shortened the distance to level ground. Pine trees filled my path but kept me covered. I had no food but I gave the child water and she drank it. I kept her wrapped in my jacket as I stumbled between rocks, aiming to get to level ground and then…

  Something snapped around my ankle. I spun around, holding the child into my chest, as my back and then my skull cracked against the rocky floor. I was dazed. Bleeding. But I opened my eyes enough to see the uniform of a Human soldier with red hair and a wicked smile.

  Then, I don’t know what happened. Maybe he hit me or maybe I just passed out, but my vision closed like a broken kaleidoscope as he wrenched the kid from my arms.

  When I woke up, I was wrapped in rope and sure that I was about to freeze to death. The soldier was gone and a group of Elves in navy-blue Opus jackets were standing around me.

  “He’s Human.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “He must have stolen it.”

  “No.” One of them bent down and lifted my face to have a better look at me. “It’s the defector. I met him once, a few years ago.”

  Sounds of disgust and anger rang out of the group. Then a deeper voice of authority spoke for the first time.

  “Put a charm on him and keep him alive till we can ask him some questions. I’ll send word to Hendricks that we found his lost dog.”

  “Yes, Tackman.”

  The one leaning over me waved her arms, and my consciousness sailed away.

  When it returned, I was already in a cell inside Sheertop: the Opus’s highest security prison. It seemed an excessive measure for a busted-up Human still bleeding from the head, but I wasn’t in any position to complain. The room I was given had an inch-thick mattress, a metal toilet and no window. I’d stayed in worse.

  The cell door was flat and translucent. I learned later that it was pure magical energy. On the other side of it, there was a handsome warden with sharp features, even for an Elf. You could have used his cheekbones to skin a deer.

  “How long have I been a—” I started, but my throat was too dry to finish a sentence.

  “A week,” said the warden. “Not asleep, though. We’ve had a whole variety of charms working through your mind. You’ve been very useful, actually. With the information you gave the Opus, they should have the mountain back under our control within days.”

  I was sore all over but my arm was particularly painful. I pulled back my sleeve and discovered that I hadn’t just been questioned without my consent, I’d also been given a new tattoo. It was cruder than the others. Thicker. This was not a mark of pride. It was identification. A barcode.

  “Welcome to Sheertop Prison. We don’t usually house your kind here as the power of the place is wasted on a species so… inconsequential. But the High Chancellor asked for a favor and I can never say no to a friend.”

  When I thought about Hendricks, it was like someone pushed pins into my brain. Since leaving the Opus, I’d been doing my best not to think of him. Now, he knew exactly where I was. Any day, he could walk back in and I’d have no choice but to face the mentor I’d betrayed. That was worse than the small room or the insane screaming down the hall or any of it. The fact that I couldn’t run anymore, and I’d have to sit and wait right there to face what I’d done.

  The warden walked away and the wall between us turned solid. It was like a concrete box had been constructed around me.

  Two days passed. My sleep was broken by screaming and my meals were brown mush and water. They were the last good days of my life.

  25

  So, Portemus thought that a post-Coda creature had been running around with magic in its muscles. A creature that was now occupying a bucket in his lab. Of course, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. I knew that more than anyone.

  But, if it was, that changed everything. Everything about the case. Everything about Rye. Everything about everything.

  I needed to talk to someone who would shine some light on Portemus’s story and tell me if it was bullshit. When you want to separate rumor from fact, the devil is in the details. Luckily for me, I knew a Demon, and I was hoping that would be just as good.

  The phones were dead. Water damage from the flood, most likely. I had to march all the way up to the House of Ministers to see Baxter Thatch, but the displaced slum-dwellers were keeping Baxter far too busy to deal with me. I did manage to lock down a meeting for the next morning when they would be working their other job as curator of the Sunder City Museum.

  I was agitated and impatient but when I went back to my office to change my clothes and decide what to do next, my night waiting for Pete caught up with me and I passed out in my chair with a Clayfield dangling from my lips.

  Museums make me nervous. Not a rational fear, I know, but growing up in Weatherly gave me an aversion to educational institutions. That happens when you find out everything your teachers told you is a lie.

  The Weatherly Museum that I frequented as a boy was a truly impressive library of misinformation. Histories that never happened. Heroes that never existed. Every exhibit was a cruelly constructed story, painting a terrifyin
g version of life outside the walls. The rest of the world was a nightmare that we’d escaped from, and the Weatherly Museum was a reminder of just how lucky we were to be alive.

  Entering the Sunder City Museum, after the Coda, elicited emotions that were quite the opposite. Every marble statue, taxidermy animal or painted image was stuffed with regret, nostalgia and sadness.

  A few years ago, each piece would have merely been an instrument of education. Now, every exhibit was a reminder of a time when life still had some goddamn life in it.

  The high, stone pillars were carved into the shape of magical animals. Walls were lined with classical paintings, depicting legendary moments of magical revelation. A Wyvern skeleton was suspended over the entrance, stretching out its talons as if about to catch some prey.

  Baxter, the raven-skinned Demon with red horns, waited for me in round glasses and another bespoke suit.

  “One hell of a hall of memories here, Baxter. I can’t imagine why it’s so empty. Doesn’t everybody want to be reminded of just how much we lost?”

  Baxter smiled. The thought had apparently not escaped them.

  “It will swing back around, I’m sure. Memory will become history and the young ones will soon see these stories as exciting again. Nothing stays the same for too long, Fetch. Every tragedy eventually becomes someone’s entertainment.”

  We walked down a hallway lined with marble busts and oil-painted portraits. These were the great leaders of the past. Lost heroes, mad kings and revolutionaries.

  Mostly, these historical legends come in pairs. Nothing allows a man to flourish quite like an adversary of equal strength. On their own, some of these figures might never have been noticed, but face them off against each other in bloody conflict and both names get drilled into the record book. A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.

  At the end of the hallway, above the arch that would take us into the next room, there was a monumental picture of Eliah Hendricks sitting sideways on a wooden throne. Baxter and I both stopped to take him in.

  “When was this done?” I asked.

  “Fifty years before you met him, at his inauguration as the Opus High Chancellor. I signed on as his advisor that morning and almost quit by midnight. He was uncontrollable. Couldn’t even sit still long enough to be sketched. You know him, offering drinks to the artist and all his associates. Questioning them about colors and classical technique. The poor painter didn’t capture his eyes, but under the circumstances I can’t blame him. He did better than most. Thank the stars for the invention of photography or the world would have forgotten what he really looked like.”

  Baxter was right. The artist hadn’t got the eyes, but something of his essence was in there. Hendricks’ noble chin and fine clothes couldn’t hide his playful spirit.

  “Were you there at the end?” I asked, not daring to turn around. Baxter sighed, more tired than sad.

  “Not with him, unfortunately. I had gone off on my own. Researching a personal matter. I received word from the Opus about the attack but I never thought it would end up like this.”

  “Me either.”

  I could feel Baxter’s doubt without having to turn around.

  “Really?” they said. “You don’t think sabotage was the point all along? To kill the magic? You still believe that they were hoping to harness some of the power, like they said afterwards?”

  I nodded, but I was a long way from certain. Baxter let me off the hook by planting a cold-blooded hand on my shoulder.

  “Yesterday, you said you needed information for one of your cases. Which display would you like me to take you to?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not here to talk about any display, Baxter. I’m here to talk about you. Anywhere we do that is fine by me.”

  Baxter raised an ebony eyebrow. I’d piqued their curiosity. For a thousand-year-old Demon, that was a tough thing to do.

  “Let’s go out to the garden.”

  The central atrium had once been filled with wonder: real flowers, gentle butterflies and a magical irrigation system to keep them all alive. The Coda killed that, of course, so they’d been replaced with hand-made, paper impressions; crude cut-outs of natural beauty that just looked sad to me. Baxter must have seen the disapproval on my face.

  “Seemed a better idea when they pitched it to me.”

  We took our seats on opposite sides of an iron garden table.

  “I’ve been thinking about that story you told me,” I said. “Norgari and the Necromancer and the first Vampires.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “What do you call them? These tales that describe the start of some magical species?”

  “Well, most of them come from the Elven Scriptures; stories recorded throughout time, kept with the High Elves in Gaila. I tend to just think of them as fables.”

  “How long since we had one?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When was the most recent magical creation? The last time you heard about something new?”

  Baxter squinted, counting the calendar in their head.

  “Probably the newest evolutions of the Fae, three or four centuries ago. Why?”

  I crossed my legs and wiped some dried mud from the cuff of my trousers.

  “We think we found something,” I said. “Down in the morgue, in a metal tray, are pieces of a creature that can’t be identified. It has the strength and size of something from the old world but it’s no old-world monster I’ve ever seen. Portemus neither.”

  “Perhaps I should take a look.”

  “Perhaps you should. Porty would like that. I’m sure he’d also like to take a look at you.”

  Baxter furrowed their black brow.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re another one of a kind, aren’t you? Portemus gets a real hard-on when he sees something new.”

  “There are no new things in this broken world, Fetch.”

  “That’s one of my lines. I was expecting a little more optimism from you. Look, I’m not trying to pretend this world isn’t busted twelve times over. I know there’s no magic and there’s no hope and nothing is going to make things the way they were. But there is you.”

  “And what am I?”

  I looked Baxter up and down. The fitted suit was gripped tight to hulking black-and-red flesh. I was sure the little glasses were only for effect: an attempt to distract from the brimstone behind them. The red horns sprouting from their forehead shone like polished mahogany.

  “You’re strong and you’re smart and you don’t look a day older than you did when we met. You have all your teeth in your head and your fingers and toes and you don’t seem to have slowed down at all.”

  “And what exactly does that make me guilty of?”

  I turned up the empty palms of my hands.

  “Nothing.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “Because I want to know why you’re still here. Are you mortal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s only been a few years since your kind cut the cord, Fetch. Wait a few more and maybe I’ll have wrinkles and arthritis and you’ll know I’m also on the way out. For now, we have to wait and see.”

  “You still think you’ll change?”

  Baxter relaxed back in their chair and tried to work me out. There was more grit in those glistening teeth than I was used to seeing.

  “You may have heard some of my story but I doubt you know it all. Humor me while I catch you up.” Baxter took off the glasses and fire swirled in their eyes. “I was kicked out onto this world, a thing unformed. I don’t know where I came from and I don’t know why. Yes, I may be strong and I may still be alive, but I was never like the others. Even before it all changed.

  “Why didn’t I crumble into dust or
burst into flames when the Coda came? I don’t know. Some part of me still expects it every day. Some part of me still hopes for it every day.”

  “Why?”

  “Because each morning, when I open my eyes and see that I’m unchanged – still strong, still here – I worry that my greatest fear was founded on truth.” Baxter reached out, touched the petal of a fake paper flower and pulled it from the wire stem. “The fear that I did not come from the great river. That my body was not built by magic. The fear that I came from some other place. A darker place. That I was spared the curse because I am, myself, part of that curse.”

  Baxter closed their eyes and tried to hold back the waves that tumbled inside them. I didn’t wait for them to recover before I leaned forward.

  “So, there’s you. What else is there?”

  Baxter took a deep breath.

  “I just told you, I’m the only one.”

  “Not another Demon. Other strength. Other power. You’re still digging around out there, asking questions of every species. Where’s the exception to the rule? The outside chance? If anybody knows where the bogeyman is, it’s you.”

  Baxter weighed something up on the scales in their head. I saw reluctance, but I also saw a flash of hidden excitement.

  “It’s just a rumor,” they said.

  “I’ll take it.”

  Baxter pushed their bulging, black body back in the seat and the chair creaked like it was going to snap.

  “It’s probably nothing. Just a crazy story from the cattle fields out west. Most likely the nightmares of peasants that got passed along as—”

  “What is it?”

  Baxter’s red eyes looked into mine.

  “Trolls are moving.”

  Now, that was news.

  Trolls were created by a system similar to the Dragon pit. When small amounts of magic built up in the earth, it affected the land around it. Not with enough potency to create a Dragon, but just enough to make things interesting. A sliver of power would seep into a tree, rock or hunk of clay. After a while, that piece of the planet would get up, shake itself off, and wander out in search of breakfast. Trolls could make themselves out of any material but they were just lumps of land given sentience. When the Coda came, they froze up. Most Trolls broke down into the base elements they’d been created from. The ones that lasted longer got stuck in place; chunks of earth, still alive, but unable to move in any way. The last known Trolls faded out after a few non-magic months. They died in an instant or they died after days of pain. What none of them did was get up again.